Elon Musk has ambitious plans to transform X into the central hub for all things financial in people’s lives. He anticipates that these new features will be unveiled by the close of 2024. Musk shared his vision with X employees during a recent company-wide meeting, expressing his belief that users will be astounded by the platform’s capabilities.
In Musk’s words, “When I say payments, I actually mean someone’s entire financial life. If it involves money, it’ll be on our platform. Money or securities or whatever. So, it’s not just like send $20 to my friend. I’m talking about, like, you won’t need a bank account.”
Linda Yaccarino, the CEO of X, echoes this sentiment, stating that the company envisions this development as a full-fledged opportunity that could come to fruition in 2024. Musk reiterated his optimism by declaring, “It would blow my mind if we don’t have that rolled out by the end of next year.”
To achieve this transformation, the company is actively working to secure money transmission licenses across the United States. Musk has expressed his hopes of obtaining the remaining licenses that X needs in the coming months.
Musk has previously outlined his intention to mold X into a comprehensive financial center. He even renamed Twitter after his online bank from the dot-com era, X.com, which later became part of PayPal. His plans encompass a wide array of financial services, including high-yield money market accounts, debit cards, checks, and loan services, all with the ultimate goal of enabling users to send money globally in an instant and in real-time.
Musk couldn’t help but reflect on the original X.com vision during the internal meeting. “The X/PayPal product roadmap was written by myself and David Sacks actually in July of 2000,” Musk revealed. “And for some reason PayPal, once it became eBay, not only did they not implement the rest of the list, but they actually rolled back a bunch of key features, which is crazy. So PayPal is actually a less complete product than what we came up with in July of 2000, so 23 years ago.”
The vision of transforming X into a comprehensive financial services hub aligns with Musk’s broader goal of making the platform an “everything app,” similar to super apps like WeChat in China. These super apps offer users a one-stop destination for a range of services, from shopping to transportation, and more.
However, Musk is well aware that achieving this vision will be no easy task. Convincing users of the necessity and advantages of such a platform is just one of the many challenges. Gaining their trust to entrust X with their entire financial lives is another significant hurdle.
